Shalom Aleichem...
Reflections is a weekly Christian Teaching Ministry. Each week we will talk about the Bible and lessons we can put to use in our daily life. We will try to, on a weekly basis, provide to you stories, thoughts, and just easy ways to live your life on a straight path.
THIS WEEK'S TEACHING....August 20, 2018
The main command of Christ for His people and the Church is to “love God and love people.” Everything else, Jesus taught, is secondary.
We are going to learn, over the next two weeks, about:
Loving God
We will be learning from Matthew 22:34-40 – “But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them,…a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, saying, 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Do you ever think about all the “things” you do in a given day? Think for a moment about all the tasks—routine and not-so-routine—that you accomplish each day—beginning with the moment you get up out of bed. I read recently where the average person thinks over 50,000 thoughts and accomplishes hundreds of tasks—some minor—some major, every single day. Whew!—It makes me tired just thinking about it!
Thank the Lord, we don’t have to consciously think about everything we do each day. For instance—you don’t have to consciously think about brushing your teeth, or taking a shower, or eating. When brushing your teeth, you don’t say to yourself, “Okay now—up, down, up, down, up, down. Now let’s do the tongue. Now the roof of the mouth. BINGO. All done.” No, you do it without thinking about it.
Sometimes we don’t even think much when we’re driving. Did you ever get way down the road and suddenly ask yourself, “How in the world did I get here?!” You were thinking about other things, but you sure were not consciously thinking about your location minute-by-minute. Your brain was kind of on auto-pilot.
On the spiritual plane, deep down inside you, there is a guiding force driving your life. It’s what drives your spiritual life when you’re spiritually on auto-pilot—by which I mean when you’re not consciously thinking about your walk with the Lord.
What is it that drives you? What makes you tick?
Churches have these driving forces as well. For some churches, it’s TRADITION; with others, it’s FINANCES; with still others, it’s programs, or personalities or the building they meet in.
Let’s look at the context of this passage. Verses 37-39 are what is often referred to as “The Great Commandment.” This passage takes place very close to the end of Jesus’ ministry. In fact, Bible scholars place it on the Tuesday of Passover week of His death, so if this is correct, these are some of Jesus’s last teachings on earth.
The entire chapter of Matthew 22 reveals an attempt by the Jewish authorities to destroy Jesus’s credibility before the crowds by asking Him a series of difficult questions designed to trip Him up and either make him look bad or pit him on one side or the other of the great debates of the day—dividing the people over Jesus. But Jesus, the all-wise Son of God, handled their questions deftly and wisely, in the foiling the Pharisee and the Sadducee plots.
Verses 34-35 tell us that when the Pharisees heard that Jesus silenced their opponents, the Sadducees, by His teaching, they put forth one of their own to try his luck at tripping Jesus up. They chose a lawyer who, though the Pharisees used him as a pawn in their attack of Jesus. was actually earnest and respectful in his question.
There are two clues that he was more than just a set-up man, both from the Gospel of Mark’s version of the story. First, Mark tells us that the lawyer was present when Jesus “reasoned together” with the Sadducees, and Mark tells us he perceived “that he [that is, Jesus] had answered them well” (Mark 12:28). Second, at the conclusion of his discussion with Christ, Jesus said to the man, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” (Mark 12:34).
Back in verse 36 of our text in Matthew, the lawyer posed his question to Jesus.
He said, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”
This was not a new question, for the scribes had been debating it for centuries. They had documented 613 commands in God’s Law—248 positive; 365 negative. No person could ever hope to know and fully obey all of these commandments. So, to make it easier, the experts divided the commandments into “heavy” (that is, important) commandments and “light” (unimportant) commandments. A person could major on the “heavy” ones and not worry about the trivial ones.
The fallacy of this approach is obvious: You need only break one law, heavy OR light, to be guilty before God, for James tells us, “…whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10).
The lawyer asked one question, but Jesus gave two answers:
1. First, He quoted what is known as the Shema, which is found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, which was recited daily by every orthodox Jew. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines the word Shema as “a declaration of the basic principle of Jewish belief, proclaiming the absolute unity of God.” Here is what Deuteronomy 6:4-5, says: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5 And you shall love the LORD thy God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”
2. Second, Jesus quoted the second part of Leviticus 19:18 and put it second only to the Shema. – The entire verse goes: “You shall not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, [and here’s the part Jesus quoted] but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”
THIS, says Jesus, is to be our supreme purpose, our great command, our guiding force in the Christian life. Jesus took all the commandments of the Old Testament—all 613 of them—and distilled them into one two-part command, known as “the Great Commandment.”
In other words, everything else in the Christian life is either subservient to this command (for Jesus said this was THE great commandment), or is subsumed as part of the Great Commandment, for Jesus said in verse 40, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Everything you need to do to obey God can be wrapped up in this commandment. This is what it all boils down to—to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. That’s the whole duty of mankind is wrapped up in two commandments spanning a mere three verses.
How many of us have really been taught this and had it emphasized in our churches? If this is the greatest commandment for the Christian, and by extension, the church, then I think we’d better pay attention and see what it means. We have talked about this in many of our Bible Study classes and that is the focus for each of us individually, has been and continues to be that this commandment would be the driving force in our Christian lives.
If you want to distill the purpose and function for each of us personally on this earth and our church corporately, you could wrap it up in this little phrase “To love God and people.” Isn’t that what this passage teaches? The purpose of our church is “To love God and people.” YOUR purpose on earth can be summarized very simply: “To love God and people.”
When you start a job, you’re given a job description. This is the job description for the Christian: “To love God and people.” Here’s the job description for Grace Baptist Church: “To love God and people.” If I ask you what your job is, you should instantly respond, “To love God and people.” Say it with me: “To love God and people.” Say it again: “To love God and people.” What’s your job in the Christian life? “To love God and people.” What’s the number one job of C4 Church? “To love God and people.”
Now it’s very easy to say that, but what does it really mean?—THAT’S the hard part. If this is an all-inclusive command, then it covers a lot. So, this week and the next couple of weeks, we’re going to look at what this means in detail.
My todays teaching is simple—Point number 1: Love God; Point number 2: Love people. Now tell me again, what is your job description? — “To love God and people.” What should be the purpose and driving force for this church? “To love God and people.”
Let’s begin by looking at the first part of the commandment—Loving God.
I. JESUS BEGAN BY SAYING IN VERSE 37: “…you shall love the Lord your God…” – CHRIST’S COMMAND HERE IS POINTED.
By saying, “YOU shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” Jesus was not giving a general teaching—He meant it to be applied personally. Whenever God gives a command in His Word, we tend to think, “This applies to So-and-So.” Or when we hear the preacher preach, we often think, “Man, I wish So-and-So were here to hear this. Boy, he really needs this, or she really needs this.”
But if we’re going to get what Jesus is saying here, we have to stop looking at the specks in our brothers’ and sisters’ eyes and start looking at the beams in our own eyes. Jesus—knowing our tendency to generalize His commands—is very penetrating. He says “You shall love the Lord your God with this all-embracing love I’m talking about. I’m not talking to your neighbor, or your brother or your mother or your spouse. I’m talking to YOU.”
As we study the Great Commandment, let me ask you not to think about the need of any other person in your life, except yourself. Ask yourself, “Do I love my God the way Jesus commands me?” If the answer to that question is No, then you should ask the next question—“What am I going to do about?”—AND THEN DO IT!
II. THE SECOND WORD TO NOTE IN THE GREAT COMMANDMENT IS “SHALL”—“You SHALL love the Lord your God…” – THIS REMINDS US THAT JESUS’ INSTRUCTIONS WERE COMMANDED.
This is self-evident, I know, since this is called “The Great COMMANDMENT” but I mention it not because it IS commanded, but because of WHAT is commanded. God commands us to love Him with an all-embracing kind of love.
That brings up the question, “Is love a feeling or an action?” This may sound like weird question, but it has tremendous ramifications in all our love relationships.
You see, if love is a feeling, it cannot be commanded, yet we see that God commanded love for Him in the Shema, and three of the four Gospels record that Jesus repeated the command, including here in our text. In verse 39, we’re commanded to love our neighbor. In other places, husbands are commanded to love their wives, wives to love their husbands, and we’re even commanded to love our enemies.
But here’s the problem: you cannot command an emotion. For instance, you cannot command someone to be angry. You cannot say to your child, “You go to your room right now and be happy.” You cannot say to someone under you at work, “I command you to be excited about your job or you’re fired.”
You can command someone to ACT as if they are angry, happy, or sad, that is, to hide their true emotions, but you cannot command the emotion itself. In other words, you can command behavior, but an emotion just IS or it ISN’T.
Most of us think love is an emotion. There is no doubt that there is an emotional element to love, but true love is not merely an emotion, but a condition that can be actuated by a decision of the will. That’s why we are commanded to love God and people.
III. THE NEXT PART OF THE GREAT COMMANDMENT IS “THE LORD YOUR GOD”—“ You shall love the Lord your God with all thy heart…soul, and…mind.” – THIS TELLS US THAT THE LOVE CHRIST COMMANDS IS EXCLUSIVE.
We cannot love any god to fulfill the Great Commandment. Jesus was well aware of the plethora of gods and religions in the world, and if there ever were a time for Him to be broad-minded, this was it!
But here and elsewhere, Jesus excluded all other GODS and all other WAYS to God. Jesus told the devil in His temptation, “…You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” (Matthew 4:10)
In the politically correct day we live in, it’s considered rude to insist that the God of the Bible as THE one true God. Yet Jesus made it very clear that we must worship the one true God alone, and no other:
1. Can we come to God by loving BUDDHA?—No, for Isaiah declared, “Thus says the LORD…I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.” (Isaiah 44:6)
2. Can we come to God by loving CONFUCIUS?—No, for Jesus said in John 17:3 – “And this is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you hast sent.”
3. Can we come to God by loving ALLAH?—No, for Paul asserted, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6)
4. Can we come to God by trusting ANYONE besides the Lord God, and through the mediator-ship of ANY person or ANY religion or ANY way besides His Son, Jesus Christ?—No, for Paul told Timothy “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:5)
The love Jesus commands is a EXCLUSIVE love.
Let me remind you again: your job description is to love God and people. First, we must love God with all our HEART, with all our SOUL, with all our MIND, and with all your STRENGTH.
You may not know yet what all that all entails, but for now, let me ask you an important question: Can you honestly say that as far as you know how to, right now, you love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind? If not, why not?
It could be because you have never come to Jesus for salvation. It is impossible to love someone you do not know. To properly love Jesus, you must first know Him as your Lord and Savior.
Let me ask those of you who are believers and followers of Jesus: Is there some sin that’s holding you back from loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? Because I love Terry, there are certain things I don’t do because I know they displease the one I love. I avoid them because they hurt my relationship with her and my love for her is too great to allow those things to come between her and me.
I wonder if you have found another spiritual lover besides the Lord. Is there something that steals your affections from Him?—Some time-consuming ACTIVITY that crowds out time with the Lord?...Some PERSON you put before the Lord? Attachment to material things that you value over advancing God’s? Is there another god that has stolen your affections for the Lord God? If so, why don’t you turn from them and turn back to your Lord who wants you to love Him in return for His spectacular love for you. I love you all:)
DID YOU EVER WONDER???
A young man learns what's most important in life from the guy next door. It had been some time since Jack had seen the old man. College, girls, career, and life itself got in the way. In fact, Jack moved clear across
the country in pursuit of his dreams. There, in the rush of his busy life, Jack had little time to think about the past and often no time to spend with his wife and son. He was working on his future, and nothing could stop him.
Over the phone, his mother told him, "Mr. Belser died last night. The funeral is Wednesday." Memories flashed through his mind like an old newsreel as he sat quietly remembering his childhood days.
"Jack, did you hear me?" "Oh, sorry, Mom. Yes, I heard you. It's been so long since I thought of him. I'm sorry, but I honestly thought he died years ago," Jack said.
"Well, he didn't forget you. Every time I saw him he'd ask how you were doing. He'd reminisce about the many days you spent over 'his side of the fence' as he put it," Mom told him.
"I loved that old house he lived in," Jack said.
"You know, Jack, after your father died, Mr. Belser stepped in to make sure you had a man's influence in your life," she said.
"He's the one who taught me carpentry," he said. "I wouldn't be in this business if it weren't for him. He spent a lot of time teaching me things he thought were important...Mom, I'll be there for the funeral,"
Jack said.
As busy as he was, he kept his word. Jack caught the next flight to his hometown. Mr. Belser's funeral was small and uneventful. He had no children of his own, and most of his relatives had passed away.
The night before he had to return home, Jack and his Mom stopped by to
see the old house next door one more time.
Standing in the doorway, Jack paused for a moment. It was like crossing over into another dimension, a leap through space and time. The house was exactly as he remembered. Every step held memories. Every picture, every piece of furniture....Jack stopped suddenly.
"What's wrong, Jack?" his Mom asked.
"The box is gone," he said.
"What box? " Mom asked.
"There was a small gold box that he kept locked on top of his desk. I must have asked him a thousand times what was inside. All he'd ever tell me was 'the thing I value most,'" Jack said.
It was gone. Everything about the house was exactly how Jack remembered it, except for the box. He figured someone from the Belser family had taken it.
"Now I'll never know what was so valuable to him," Jack said. "I better get some sleep. I have an early flight home, Mom."
It had been about two weeks since Mr. Belser died. Returning home from work one day Jack discovered a note in his mailbox. "Signature required on a package. No one at home. Please stop by the main post office within the next three days," the note read.
Early the next day Jack retrieved the package. The small box was old and looked like it had been mailed a hundred years ago. The handwriting was difficult to read, but the return address caught his attention.
"Mr. Harold Belser" it read.
Jack took the box out to his car and ripped open the package. There inside was the gold box and an envelope. Jack's hands shook as he read the note inside.
"Upon my death, please forward this box and its contents to Jack Bennett. It's the thing I valued most in my life." A small key was taped to the letter. His heart racing, as tears filling his eyes, Jack carefully unlocked the box. There inside he found a beautiful gold pocket watch. Running his fingers slowly over the finely etched casing, he unlatched the cover.
Inside he found these words engraved: "Jack, Thanks for your time! Harold Belser."
"The thing he valued most...was...my time."
Jack held the watch for a few minutes, then called his office and cleared his appointments for the next two days. "Why?" Janet, his assistant asked.
"I need some time to spend with my son," he said.
"Oh, by the way, Janet...thanks for your time!"
BOOKS OF THE BIBLE...A TEACHING
This week we look at the Book of Ruth....
Who wrote the book?
According to the Talmud (Jewish tradition), the prophet Samuel wrote the book of Ruth. The text itself says nothing of the author, but whoever wrote it was a skilled storyteller. It has been called the most beautiful short story ever written.
The final words of the book link Ruth with her great-grandson, David (Ruth 4:17–22), so we know it was written after his anointing. The genealogy at the end of the book shows David’s lineage through the days of the judges, acting as a support for his rightful kingship. Solomon is not mentioned, leading some to believe the book was written before David ascended the throne.
Where are we?The events of Ruth occurred sometime between 1160 BC and 1100 BC, during the latter period of the judges (Ruth 1:1). These were dark days, full of suffering brought about by the Israelites’ apostasy and immorality. Part of the judgments God brought upon His sinful people included famine and war.
The book of Ruth opens with a report of famine, which drove Naomi’s family out of Bethlehem into neighboring Moab. Naomi eventually returned with Ruth because she heard “that the LORD had visited His people in giving them food” (1:6).
Readers can identify this interlude as part of the cyclical pattern of sin, suffering, supplication, and salvation found in Judges. But this story stands as a ray of light, showing the power of the love between God and His faithful people. The author gave the reader a snapshot perspective—one family, in a small town, at the threshing floor—as opposed to the broader narratives found in Judges.
Why is Ruth so important?
The book was written from Naomi’s point of view. Every event related back to her: her husband’s and sons’ deaths, her daughters-in-law, her return to Bethlehem, her God, her relative, Boaz, her land to sell, and her progeny. Almost without peer in Scripture, this story views “God through the eyes of a woman.”
Naomi has been compared to a female Job. She lost everything: home, husband, and sons—and even more than Job did—her livelihood. She joined the ranks of Israel’s lowest members: the poor and the widowed. She cried out in her grief and neglected to see the gift that God placed in her path—Ruth.
Ruth herself embodied loyal love. Her moving vow of loyalty (Ruth 1:16–17), though obviously not marital in nature, is often included in modern wedding ceremonies to communicate the depths of devotion to which the new couples aspire. The book reveals the extent of God’s grace—He accepted Ruth into His chosen people and honored her with a role in continuing the family line into which His appointed king, David, and later His Son, Jesus, would be born (Matthew 1:1, 5).
What's the big idea?
Obedience in everyday life pleases God. When we reflect His character through our interactions with others, we bring glory to Him. Ruth’s sacrifice and hard work to provide for Naomi reflected God’s love. Boaz’s loyalty to his kinsman, Naomi’s husband, reflected God’s faithfulness. Naomi’s plan for Ruth’s future reflected selfless love.
The book of Ruth showed the Israelites the blessings that obedience could bring. It showed them the loving, faithful nature of their God. This book demonstrates that God responds to His people’s cry. He practices what He preaches, so to speak. Watching Him provide for Naomi and Ruth, two widows with little prospects for a future, we learn that He cares for the outcasts of society just as He asks us to do (Jeremiah 22:16; James 1:27).
How do I apply this?
The book of Ruth came along at a time of irresponsible living in Israel’s history and appropriately called the people back to a greater responsibility and faithfulness before God—even in difficult times. This call applies just as clearly to us today.
We belong to a loving, faithful, and powerful God who has never failed to care and provide for His children. Like Ruth and Boaz, we are called to respond to that divine grace in faithful obedience, in spite of the godless culture in which we live. Are you willing?
HAVE A SAFE AND BLESSED WEEK:)
Ho'omaikaʻi ka Pua iā kākou